But it’s a mistake to scoff at climate change because Hurricane Patricia caused so little damage compared to previous hurricanes. Instead, we should recognize the warning it portends for stronger storms that could form over even warmer oceans in the future.

This was caused primarily by its path over Mexico’s 10,000-foot and higher Sierra Madres, which began weakening the storm even before its eyewall came ashore. Even more fortuitously, Patricia’s relatively narrow core of hurricane-force winds thread the needle between the cities of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, averting more populated areas. Furthermore, the deep ocean near that region hinders the storm surge that can be so devastating in Gulf of Mexico storms.

There is no reason to rest assured that future storms will take such a damage-limiting path as Patricia. Instead, we should see in Patricia just how quickly and intensely a hurricane can develop over warm waters.

The crucial question moving forward, though, is not what roles greenhouse warming and El Niño played in this particular storm. Instead, we should focus on the fact that the largest amount of warming and its impacts are yet to come. Warming to date has been about a degree Celsius overall, and slightly less over oceans.

However, projections show that our current path of emissions could cause more than twice as much warming as has occurred so far. As warmer surface ocean conditions become a more prevalent feature in the eastern Pacific even outside of El Niño years, there would be more opportunity for tropical storm systems to intensify into major hurricanes.

Even if tropical storms become no more frequent than today, warmer waters and moister air could make them more likely to intensify, and to intensify more rapidly. Hurricane Patricia and other near-record storms of this season have shown what the fuel of warm oceans can produce. Other factors like wind shear matter too, but the role of warm waters can no longer be doubted.

Scientific understanding of how warming will accelerate storm intensification remains incomplete. Most experts expect tropical storms to be become more intense, though not necessarily more frequent.

A study published last month in the Journal of Climate projected that the eastern Pacific could experience five times as many days with Category 4 or 5 hurricanes by the end of this century.

Further warming

Some amount of continued warming of surface oceans is now inevitable, as Earth’s climate and oceans have yet to fully change in reaction to greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

However, our efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions could substantially slow the additional warming that occurs. Rapidly intensifying hurricanes are by no means the only reason to pursue such efforts — the impetus of mitigating more established climate impacts such as sea level rise, heat waves, extreme weather and ecosystem damage gives more than enough reason to do so.

Nevertheless, Hurricane Patricia should serve as yet another harbinger of the substantial changes that may accompany further warming, rather than as a reason to dismiss the need for urgency.